


minted from the ivory of your tooth and eye

by sugarboat



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Beholding powers running amok, Blindfolds, Coercion, Dubious Consent, Frottage, Gags, M/M, Non-negotiated touching, Overstimulation, Rope Bondage, Sensory Deprivation, Under-negotiated Kink, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 00:11:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16545029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugarboat/pseuds/sugarboat
Summary: Jon's becoming is a bit more overwhelming than he's prepared to deal with on his own. Peter has some knotty ideas on how to help.





	minted from the ivory of your tooth and eye

It’d been happening ever since Jon had come back from the Unknowing. The first had been in the hospital, shortly after he’d awoken to a world that still felt shattered at its edges. Like a completed puzzle whose pieces had been subtly switched, so that he could still see the image they were meant to form, but all the angles they formed were wrong, and nothing exactly fit. Jon had never experienced a moment fitting, perfectly, anywhere, but the feeling that he didn’t at _all_ was nauseating, twisting like a fist in his chest.

He'd woken alone, which wasn’t that surprising, really. He was thankful he knew what _alone_ was, that he understood enough to not be surprised, and most of his time was spent cataloguing all the items he could recognize in the room. Lampshade. Chair. Intravenous line. Hands. He lifted them, turned them palm forward and watched himself make fists, with his own hands.

A nurse had come in, then, and smiled kindly at him. Summoned in response to one of the monitors beeping at his bedside, a fresh plastic bag of saline fluid ready to be hung. He spoke to Jon in those carefully consoling tones that seemed to come naturally to healthcare providers, pressing a rapid fire series of buttons on the pump next to Jon, hanging the bag with a reassuring sort of competence before he set about shining lights in Jon’s eyes, poking at various parts of his body, listening intently over the sides of neck, up and down his chest, long moments spent with the end of his stethoscope pressed above Jon’s heart while his gaze remained glued to the secondhand tick of the wall clock.

Jon let it all sort of wash over him. He appreciated the detached quality to the young man’s hands. How he described everything before he did it, even as Jon merely nodded vacantly, and still couldn’t help but to stiffen at every touch. The nurse, he assumed, was nearly finished, looking seriously at the inside of Jon’s ankle as he palpated for a pulse, when it happened. Jon Saw him, with a sudden, brutal clarity, _Knew_ him, knew Jacob Pearson and knew why he preferred to work night shifts in a brightly lit and well populated hospital, knew the exact flavor of his fear and what it fed and longed to taste it himself – so much so that Jon had to bite his tongue to keep from Asking him, had to squeeze his eyes shut and focus on his breathing until he’d been left alone, again.

And even then, it didn’t stop. He looked around his room and Saw everything, echoes radiant and pulsing like after-images, ghosts of the people who had been here once. Their fears left behind and smeared across every surface, fear of pain, of isolation, of death, of slow, lingering disease - and of frantic paranoia, which rang like a bell in Jon’s mind, a single reverberating note that tolled like a welcome home, warm and enveloping and slick with someone else’s tears.

He couldn’t stop it. Knowledge pressing in at him from all sides, stabbing through his head, a hundred unsaid statements clambering for his attention, building to a furious peak. A panic attack was what they had called it later, after the alarms monitoring his vital signs had shrilled, after they’d hooked him up to oxygen and turned him onto his side and let him vomit the contents of his stomach until he was sure the organ had flipped itself inside out. Jon shook and shivered as the world was Known, as it ripped him to thin tatters to make room for itself, and relief flooded him when it finally receded again – relief, and horrible, painful longing.

Since then, it’d happened no more than a handful of times, and Jon had generally figured out how to manage the episodes. Said management roughly amounted to finding somewhere dark and quiet to curl himself within until the crippling waves of scalding knowledge passed. Until he could open his mouth for something other than compulsion, and the sensation that he was at once ravenous and being filled to the point of breaking had left him once more. Left him hollowed out and aching.

Elias had arranged for statements to be sent to him until he could return to the Archives, but even limping off burns and sporting puckers of stitches from where they’d dragged shards of wood and plastic shrapnel from deep inside his body, Jon couldn’t stay away for long. Strangely empty as they were – no Tim, no Melanie, Martin flitting from the room like a ghost anytime Jon entered – the Archives remained menacingly welcoming, and despite everything that had happened, it was almost easy to pretend that nothing had changed at all when he was shuttered inside his office.

Of course, the thing, the _Knowing_ , would happen here too. Made even worse by the fact that these were statements he could lose himself within, and it was as if those echoes were magnified here, not just whispers of a fear – of a story – snared in time, but earsplitting screeches of a fear, and he Saw them, how they fit together, pieces of a thousand different puzzles slotting into one massive, collective picture, and he fancied it formed a watchful eye that bore down on them all.

Jon huddled in the spare room within the Archives, the lights shut off and his hands clamped over his ears, his body curled beneath the shoddy frame of the cot because even though having a thin and well-worn sheet press against him felt like too much, Jon still felt the need to hide himself away, cover himself in some manner, unable to escape the peering gaze throbbing through his grey matter, unable to escape gnawing hunger that gaze awoke inside him.

Trying to discern a pattern from the episodes was a frustrating waste of time. They built apropos of nothing at all, and accumulated on themselves like a swelling tide in a matter of minutes. Dark helped, and quiet helped, as did pulling all his limbs in tight, digging his fingers into his arms like the action alone could remind himself that whatever tides dragged and tugged at his mind, this part of him, at least, was still human. Jon hadn’t dared to try and indulge these moments, either. If reading – or taking – a statement at any other moment was like falling into a shallow pool, he couldn’t imagine the depths to which he might sink when Beholding’s sway was so complete around him.

The last one he’d had was weeks behind him, now. It had left him feeling shaken for days after, as if he was nursing the world’s worst hangover. An each time it felt as though some chasm had been ripped open inside him, a mouth opening wide or an eye blinking open to reveal the endless gaping maw of its pupil. Demanding satisfaction. Peter – Peter Lukas, the Head of the Magnus Institute, and something strange and vaguely nauseating twisted in Jon’s stomach when he thought about that – didn’t seem to mind. In fact, Peter threw him idle praise when he came down to his office and collected the multiple statements Jon had recorded in the last episode’s wake, and asked him if he wouldn’t like a day or two off to recuperate.

Some part of him believed that Peter _couldn’t_ have the answers he needed. Whether this was normal, as far as the word could be stretched, or not. At least Elias could have told him something. If this was whatever he was becoming shaking off the last vestiges of his humanity. If this was some sort of rebound effect from the Unknowing. But Elias was not there, and had left behind himself an ill-fitting replacement. Not that Peter was the worst boss Jon had ever had – that title still belonged to Elias Bouchard – but sometimes his very presence in the Archives felt like an irritant. Like a grain of sand trapped behind Jon’s eye, rubbing at him when it moved.

And whatever Elias had been, he’d had answers.

So that was not why he’d come up to Peter’s office today – not for anything like reassurance or guidance. Jon had, in fact, slightly lost track of why he’d come up here in the first place, his train of thought stopped short by the fact that Peter simply wasn’t there. The light was still on, which was why he’d come barreling in in the first place, already saying Peter’s name before Jon realized he was talking to himself. It wasn’t that unheard of, of course; the man seemed to come and go as he pleased, with no regard for the standard operating hours a place of business was generally meant to conform to.

It was oddly fitting, and almost entirely unsurprising, that it was that moment Jon felt the pulsing ache of something drilling into the base of his brainstem, his vision blurring at its edges while soft, ringed halos spread outward from the lightning – the desk lamp, the overhead and recessed lights – like oil seeping over the surface of water. This was the absolute last place that Jon would have wanted something like this to happen so, of course, it _had_ to happen here. It almost felt stronger, somehow, the sensation of Knowing crashing over him, and he shuddered at the sheer preponderance of information that was kept hidden away within- well, it was Peter’s office now, but it would ever remain Elias’ domain.

The worst of it was the gnashing curiosity that chewed at him, and he remembered the bones Elias had once told him where hidden here, somewhere. _If he knew where to look for them_. He thought that he knew, now, and he longed to hear their tale, from beginning to pathetic, cowering end, and a hundred more stories just the same clawed at his attention, promised him secrets and knowing, swirled around him like smoke he longed to breathe in.

It sunk within him like hooks, and Jon could practically hear the voices of long-dead patrons of the Institute, pouring out their fears, spreading their innards wide beneath an unyielding eye, and he himself felt pinned, on the verge of being split and splayed across its altar, although he couldn’t help but wonder what, exactly, he still had left to give. What could possibly still belong only to him, that the Eye longed to take from him.

He should have left, he knew. He should have stumbled back down to the Archives, or just one of the few spare rooms he’d found. A broom closet, an empty bathroom stall; anything would be better than planting himself firmly in the center of the Institute’s eye – like trying to hide from sight within that gaping pupil, only bringing himself closer to its scrutiny, inviting its gaze to sink into his fine details, to scour him thoroughly.

He should have left, and instead he found himself paralyzed fully within his patron’s grasp, stumbling on legs gone numb and catching himself on the corner of Elias’- Peter’s desk. Clutching the edge of it, he followed it around the side, dragging out Peter’s chair and nearly crumpling to the floor, stuffing himself within the welcoming, shrouding darkness offered by the hollow beneath it. Jon pushed himself back, until his spine hit the far side of the desk, his knees drawing up to his chest and his fingers digging into his arms in a desperate attempt to keep from clawing at his own eyes.

Time didn’t have any legitimate meaning for a while. Jon just measured the frantic beat of his pulse in his ears, in the shallow stretches of his skin where his blood coursed close to the surface. Anything to distract from the relentless press of something vast and utterly, achingly knowable driving itself massively into the fragile shell Jon provided, bulging obscenely outwards until he felt like a thin sheaf of fabric, of flesh, teetering on the edge of dehiscence.

A door opened, somewhere, and Jon imagined eyes swiveling in their sockets to study it. He wondered who might step through the doorway, and who might be drawn into the twisting, twining paths that lie beyond it, that Jon had found so intently intriguing so often before. Nothing else reached him, no other thoughts of his own, as another’s fears poured down his throat when he breathed, and he wanted, desperately, to give voice to their story – how a door they’d never seen before had appeared in their bedroom. How they’d opened it, how they’d followed a gently sloping corridor and been hunted through its mirrors – a story that was already known and catalogued, made new again through Jon’s untempered gaze.

“Oh, hmm. This is interesting,” Peter Lukas said. His voice hammered itself against Jon’s eardrums. When he opened his eyes, Peter was crouched down in front of his desk, the lights behind him pulsing in vivid coronas. Jon groaned, closing them again. “Elias didn’t tell me to expect this particular… tic.”

Jon wished Peter would stop talking. Or wished that he would say something _useful_ for a change, something that wasn’t the bland, approachable mask Jon was still waiting to see crack.

“I think this is where you say something sarcastic and borderline disrespectful, Archivist,” Peter said. The title sent a rush of sensation through him that Jon couldn’t categorize. His skin shuddered in a wave of goosebumps and didn’t quite seem to fit right.

Fingers brushed against his forehead, trailing down to the top of his cheek. The touch sparked against his skin and Jon tried to jerk away, succeeding only in thunking the back of his head into the desk. Peter chuckled, a low sound that nonetheless rattled in Jon’s temples. He didn’t seem dissuaded in the least by Jon’s efforts to recoil, cupping his hand against Jon’s cheek. And, surprisingly, Jon felt the clamoring against his skull – the scratching claw of all those statements, all those things he could _Know_ \- quiet. Abate, fading beneath the isolating press of the Lonely.

It was almost soothing, if the fact of who it was coming from - _what_ it was coming from – could be tolerated. Still, the tightness in his chest eased, allowed him to take the first deep breath since he’d come into the office. When he dared to slip his eyes open again, the lights framing Peter were less scorching on his retinas. Jon could make out some of his expression, amused, a corner of his lips hooked upwards, eyes even darker than usual as he peered into the gloom beneath his desk at Jon’s huddled form. His hand was calloused against Jon’s skin, the pad of his thumb rough where it stroked along his cheek.

“Coming around, are you?” Peter asked. Jon glared at him. His head continued to ache, as though spikes were slowly being driven through it, and he felt on the verge of splitting apart somehow, or falling into himself, into that starving mouth inside him. Jon licked his lips, cataloguing how Peter’s eyes dropped to watch the movement.

“Do you-” Jon began, the words spilling out of him almost unconsciously. He clenched his jaw, feeling them bubble in his throat, pushing at the back of his teeth like vomit. “Do you have a statement to give?”

He felt the compulsion snake around his tongue, buzz in the muscle at the hinge of his jaw.

“Yes,” Peter answered, “Of course I do. I think we all do, as a necessity.”

“Who’s _we_?” Jon asked. His gums tingled at the back of his mouth, like anticipation of a meal, or a taste so sour it watered his eyes.

“The others like me. Most of the Lukases – Elias told you, I’m sure, it’s something of a family business – and speaking of, Elias has one, too. If you get to the point of Something claiming you, it’s probably not your first time on the-” Peter stopped abruptly, his head tilting. A curious expression on his face. In the absence of his voice, Jon realized he’d been leaning slightly forward, as if getting closer to the source of his answers would somehow provide him more. “Was that- That was it, wasn’t it?”

Jon swallowed. Peter didn’t sound angry. Surprised, perhaps, and thoughtful. It was strange to hear someone else talk about Elias without abject misery attached in some way. But those only came as passing thoughts, his attention fixating on the idea of Elias’ _statement_ , of pulling it out of him, Elias’ voice from a lifetime ago telling him _that’s quite nice, actually_.

That was the future. In the moment, Jon only had one statement within his reach, one fear to collect, to observe, and it was like an itch begging to be scratched, driving itself upwards in sharp leaps with every second that ticked by. It wasn’t that he wanted to – in some corner of himself, that fear was still thrashing and visceral (it reminded Jon of Mike Crew, holding him at the edge of a steep incline, the sweet anticipatory dread before the drop). It was that every part of him was bending towards it, an autonomous response that he had to fight to keep in check, a rising swell on his tongue, pressure building against a dam that had already been breached.

“Tell me what-” The remainder of Jon’s compulsion was muffled by Peter’s palm pressed firmly against his mouth, little finger hooked around his jaw and Peter’s thumb pushing hard into the curve of bone beneath Jon’s eye.

“That might be a problem, Archivist,” Peter said. That same little jolt pierced Jon at the word - _Archivist_ \- and he leaned forward against Peter’s hand. Peter’s fingers tightened in response. “Having some trouble?”

Jon stared at him flatly and nodded. It helped – Peter’s hand clamped tight around his mouth, anchoring his jaw shut.

“Do you think you could tell me what’s going on, here? Elias really didn’t mention it, I swear,” Peter said. He went to pull his hand away and something like a panic swirled in Jon’s stomach, painfully unhooking his hands from himself so he could layer one over Peter’s on his mouth, pin it in place. “Oh. Oh, that’s, hmm.”

Jon didn’t care what it was. What that sound Peter made, almost guttural in his throat, was meant to convey.

“Need a hand keeping that pretty mouth of yours shut?” Peter asked him. Jon huffed a breath out through his nose that he hoped was properly unimpressed. “Come now, Archivist, I’m doing you a favor here, aren’t I?”

As if he wanted anyone – let alone Peter Lukas – doing him favors. Still, it was hard to categorize this as anything else, when Jon felt so distinctly aware of Peter’s hand, warm and dry, calloused against the skin of his lips, and Jon’s eyes drifted shut when Peter shifted his fingers and thumb to rub firm circles into the aching hinge of his jaw.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Peter said. “And I suppose we can forego the manners, just this once. Dire circumstances and all, huh?”

Jon made a low sound that could probably pass as acquiescence if Peter was feeling lenient. The fingers at his jaw tightened nearly to the point of pain, sharp and aching pressure drawing some of his attention away from the electric pound of his pulse through his own skull. The morbid, pessimistic area of his brain that apparently never properly shut off imagined Peter’s hand like a vice, squeezing and squeezing until his bones buckled and snapped inwards. He thought of shards shoving through his gums, tangling among his teeth, and thought, too, that it would be better than whatever awful knowing he kept being dragged towards.

Peter’s grip slackened. His hand pulled away again and again Jon chased it, though this time he was stilled with a pointed rebuttal - _ah-ah, Archivist_ , like he was a child or a pet – Peter’s fingers on his lips, pushing him back.

“I’m going to have to go get some supplies. Lucky you that I believe in being prepared for unconventional occurrences – they do tend to crop up with surprising frequency in our line of work, don’t they?”

Jon got the gist of all that. Probably. Peter reached forward with his free hand and grabbed one of Jon’s wrists. Squeezing the bones just to feel them grind against one another. It made Jon jerk his arm back, automatic, but Peter’s grip only tightened, not budging an inch. He brought Jon’s hand to his own mouth and slapped his palm across it.

“There! Not ideal, no- what’s that look for? I told you, I need to grab some things, and then I’ll be back. You just – hold tight.” Peter’s touch lingered on him for a moment. Along his cheeks, tracing his jawline, playing across the back of his hand where Jon muffled himself.

And then he slid away and that roaring cacophony closed in on him, that made Jon wince and curl in tighter on himself. Finding himself on the edge of a precipice, the fluttering jetstreams of a great chasm pulling at him, or collapsing inwards inside him, tearing pieces of him away, carving deep voids within him that yearned to be filled.

Knowing how he could fill them, how he could feed it – echoes of an old warning, of how it would feed on him, instead. It – Beholding – that felt like it was hollowing Jon out, stripping him of what he was until only the Archivist remained. The worst part was that Jon didn’t know how much its interference was even needed. The urge to glut himself on knowledge, on fear, on the faded remnants that lingered in these places, that roamed the dark space behind his eyes when he slept – it wasn’t new. Unfamiliar only in its intensity, in the way that it warped and tugged at his senses, and Jon thought of all the things he would give to have a statement at hand, to quench the ravening hole inside him, even if it cost him the last scraps of humanity he had left to cling to.

Someone touched him. The world went quiet at its edges. Jon pressed himself into it, following it, his hand scrambling at a wrist, a forearm, and he swore he could hear someone laughing. His teeth were digging hard into flesh, salted copper flooding his mouth the way words should be flooding it instead. But he’d been- he wasn’t meant to be asking, right now, he was meant to hold his tongue still. That someone tugged at his wrist and Jon clenched his jaw tighter, because he was doing what he was told, what was going to help him, until another hand pet through his hair, gripping tight at the base of his neck.

“Jon,” the word swam into focus, “Come on, let go, I’m back, and I’ve brought exactly what you need.”

Jon nodded, but someone – Peter Lukas, it finally snapped back into place – had to dig fingers into his jaw to get the muscles to relax, and his hand was wet and aching when he pulled it away from his mouth, the flesh of his palm feeling tight and swollen. Grounding, as it reminded Jon what he was. That he was more than seeing and knowing and hunger, hunger, gnawing hunger, that Peter could feed, he’d told him as much, and Jon licked his lips, chasing hot wet blood that was quickly drying to a tacky film, and opening his mouth, a question yet unformed already on his tongue-

And unceremoniously stifled, as Peter stuffed his mouth full of cloth, and Jon felt it tugging at the corners of his mouth when the strip was tied behind his head, yanked until it was almost too tight. The indignant shock was enough to make Jon open his eyes, though the lights in the office had grown those jagged halos again, and his vision shifted with sluggish after-images as he focused on Peter’s face. The man, perhaps predictably, grinning widely.

“That’s better, isn’t it?” Jon glared at him. His tongue kept pressing forward, pushing against the cloth in his mouth that was already beginning to soak with his saliva. “No need to thank me, Jon – that can wait until later, I think.”

Peter beckoned him closer, hooking fingers behind the curve of his jaw. Jon allowed himself to be guided forward, awkward shuffle on his knees that it was, squinting into the light of the office that he knew couldn’t be so bright as it felt. One of Peter’s hands dropped to his chest, stopping him. The other trailed along Jon’s skin, followed from his jaw along the length of his gag to his lips. Peter hooked a finger beneath his bottom lip, adjusting the way it stretched around the cloth. He did the same to Jon’s upper and ended with a light, celebratory clap to the side of Jon’s face.

“Very nice, Archivist,” Peter said. Jon rolled his eyes. Pointedly attributed the warmth he could feel in his cheeks to the unexpected slap. Nevermind that it hadn’t been enough to hurt, or that it had only been delivered to one side. “Now, close your eyes.”

It occurred to Jon just how horrible of an idea all of this was. Peter was dangerous. He didn’t belong to the Archives or Beholding, and whatever tenuous balancing of debts and favors guided his and Elias’ so-called alliance was completely unknown to Jon. But Peter had been helping him – even now, kept some contact between them, like he knew the buffer his presence provided to the Eye’s unending gaze – in a way that nothing else, so far, had been able to. Was offering more of something Jon hadn’t even known was an option.

Peter, detail-oriented prick that he was, seemed to notice Jon’s hesitance. “Having second thoughts? I don’t blame you.” Comments like that were hardly helping matters. Peter laughed. “If you don’t want to go along with it, just say the word, Jon. I’ll let you leave. And you can go find yourself some dark hole to crawl into until whatever this is passes and hope you don’t bite your own tongue off in the meantime.”

Both of Peter’s hands were on Jon’s neck, not pressing or squeezing, just there, fingers rubbing at his skin, keeping his head angled to meet his gaze.

“Oh,” Peter said, like a thought had just occurred. “But what if you ran into someone who didn’t know how your little compulsions work? Those questions you ask, they’re a bit like fish hooks, all that catching and tearing and pulling things free. Do you think you’d be able to stop yourself before you did some actual damage?”

Jon’s jaw was clenched tight. He found himself abruptly grateful for the gag in his mouth, giving him something to dig into that wasn’t his own flesh or teeth.

“Just a thought,” Peter finished. His hand drew up to Jon’s mouth again, thumbing at his lower lip. “Well, what’s it going to be, Archivist? You can leave, or, you can stay right here, and close your eyes, and I’ll help you.”

In unneeded emphasis, Peter withdrew his touch entirely, that scouring, scraping weight back on Jon in an instant. He almost fell over himself in his haste to throw himself back into contact – any contact – with Peter. Peter caught him easily enough, hands on Jon’s elbows even as Jon clutched at Peter’s shirt, breath coming fast and loud and ragged through his nose.

“Now now, I know how you Eye folk tend to be, but you don’t just get whatever you want without giving something back.”

Jon leaned back once he was certain Peter wasn’t letting go again. He studied Peter’s face, the relaxed and almost friendly expression that was only predatory at its very edges. Wondering what he was meant to be giving back, exactly. The possibilities churned in his stomach, all of them unpleasant. He allowed himself a small moment of resentment, that none of this was ever just _easy_ , and then Jon closed his eyes.

“That’s the spirit,” Peter said.

He felt Peter shift, felt Peter’s knee pressed to his own as the man released him, felt the fabric of Peter’s shirt – still clutched in his hands – tug and pull while he fetched something. A something that turned out to be a blindfold, pressing down his eyelids, tied with a bit more consideration than the gag had been. He was surprised at how soothing the sudden darkness was, more absolute than the kind offered by his eyes alone. A sense of security that this wouldn’t disappear if he slipped up and opened his eyes. That Peter wouldn’t know if he tried to peek, his offer of help wouldn’t be rescinded.

Peter’s hands were stroking through his hair. Touching the sides of his face, down to his neck. They rested there, warm and solid, slipped beneath the collar of his shirt, the weight feeling like it was pushing him down into the floor, melting the tense muscles beneath them by heat and presence alone.

“Better?” Peter asked, his voice low and quiet, and this time Jon nodded. He didn’t realize he was leaning into his hands until Peter lifted them and he felt himself drift forward before catching. Peter laughed again, and his fingers found the first button of Jon’s shirt, slipping it free. “You’re going to have to undress for this next part.”

At that, Jon jerked back, a protesting noise muffled by the gag in his mouth. Peter tugged him forward again by the front of his shirt.

“Calm down, it’s just to your pants,” Peter told him. “Unless you’ve neglected to dress yourself appropriately for work.”

Jon swore he could physically hear Peter drop a wink at the end of his statement. As if this was all fun and games to him. Which sounded likely, actually – Peter hadn’t made a point of hiding any of his amusement or enjoyment in the situation. Jon shook his head, trying to get back to that headspace he’d briefly occupied. Where he could appreciate the dark and the forced quiet, could feel himself relax beneath the press of Peter’s hands – however poorly advised that was – rather than tense and flinch.

Peter seemed equally comfortable with either. He made quick work of Jon’s shirt, fingers deft and sure, and Jon wished for a moment that his mouth was unoccupied so he could tell Peter to fold it rather than toss it to a heap somewhere on his floor. He rucked Jon’s undershirt up, guiding it over his head and arms. His actions were a bit less salacious than Jon would have imagined. Almost perfunctory in his removal of Jon’s clothing, taking him carefully in hand and pulling him to feet.

The sound of his belt being unclasped seemed obscenely loud. Peter didn’t bother to undo it farther than he needed, yanking it open and popping the button and zip of his trousers in a few fluid motions. When Peter dragged Jon’s slacks down his legs, Jon felt him crouch down as well, hands palming over the fronts of his thighs, thumbs stroking at the curve of his calves as he descended. Jon clumsily sat his hands on Peter’s shoulders, letting the man steady him.

Somehow, it felt almost too intimate when Peter slid his shoes off, one leg hiked and supported and then the other, Peter cupping the arch of his foot after his slacks were a puddle on the ground, rolling his socks down in a way that, despite everything else, was uniquely embarrassing. Jon tried to hold himself still, feeling restless without a way to expel it. Made worse when Peter lingered holding his right foot captive, squeezing his free hand around Jon’s ankle like a vice.

There was a mouth on him, then, on his thigh just above his knee, then teeth digging in until he flinched backwards, knocking himself into the desk. Peter let him go, keeping his hands on the outsides of Jon’s legs and dragging up to his hips as he rose. Laughing, again.

“Couldn’t resist,” he said. Jon noted how the apology part of that statement was keenly absent. “You’re a bit skittish beneath all that grouchy obstinance. Ah, don’t worry – I won’t tell.”

That, clearly, being what had annoyed Jon about the whole situation. Jon rolled his eyes, even knowing it couldn’t be seen, making a noise in his throat Jon hoped Peter could properly interpret as his irritation. He slid his hands down from Peter’s shoulders, feeling the firm curve of his arms – thicker than he would have thought – before he dropped them to grip at the edge of the desk. Peter leaned close to him, the brush of his shirt against Jon’s chest, and he slipped a hand between Jon’s arm and his waist, reaching behind him.

“We’re about to get to the fun part, Archivist,” Peter confided. He dragged something smooth across Jon’s skin, soft and giving. And then he was leaning in close again, his breath a rolling wave against Jon’s ear, over his neck. “Turn around.”

Jon did. It seemed too late to for hesitation or second guesses. And he was not- _skittish_ , he thought with a bit of stoked ire. The hand Peter had left on his hip didn’t move as he turned. Simply dragged across his skin with his movement until Peter was squeezing at his opposite hip from behind. His attention so thoroughly drawn to it that Peter draping that smooth material against his shoulder made him flinch and startle.

“Do you know what this is?” Peter asked.

Jon frowned, trying to make sense of the material on his skin, bunched and bundled as it was. He was about to shake his head when It suddenly uncoiled with a jerk of Peter’s fingers, and Jon felt it unspooling, becoming a single, thick strand dangling down his chest before Peter began wind it back to himself. A rope. That was certainly enough to ring some alarm bells, it made him take a step back, a thoughtless action which ended in him bumping into Peter’s chest. His hands were drifting up towards his mouth, to the gag, but Peter’s arms curled around him and took hold of both wrists.

“Skittish,” he said again. The rope was still tangled around the fingers of his right hand, which he slid to cover Jon’s own. Pushed both their hands to Jon’s chest, pressing them hard against his sternum where Jon could feel his own heart beating frantically. Peter leaned forward, rested his chin on one of Jon’s shoulders. “You already made your choice, right? Going to back out now? It’s been helping, hasn’t it? Everything I promised, Jon, and more.”

He brought their left hands lower, to Jon’s abdomen, putting pressure there as well, enough that Jon found himself tempted to shift his weight back, rest some of it against Peter’s form.

“A man’s not much without his word, is he?” Peter asked him.

Jon shrugged his shoulder, grunting a displeased noise as he bucked to dislodge Peter. The man – not a man, no matter how he acted or felt or what he said, Peter wasn’t human anymore – laughed again but withdrew, releasing Jon’s hands. He stayed close enough to maintain their contact. His hands went back to Jon’s shoulders, stroking from his neck outward like he could smooth out the tension from them. He pushed on them, at the bone, heavy pressure that Jon found himself pushing back against.

“Hands behind your back, Jon.”

The rope was still in Peter’s hand. It felt like they had somehow come a bit disconnected from the world at large. With the blindfold, with Isolation’s vast, suffocating embrace – with nothing as an anchor but Peter himself. Jon allowed himself another moment of hesitation, hearing his pulse pound in his eardrums, thrum beneath his hand, and then he complied. Trying to think of something – anything - besides the Stranger as he did so.

It helped that Peter’s skin felt like actual, living skin when he grabbed Jon’s arms, bent them and rearranged them. His wrists aligned, palms against his own forearms, and Peter said _good_ in a way that was stomach churning rather than reassuring and still made Jon’s mouth go a bit dry, and then rope was being looped around them, tying his wrists together. Loose enough when he felt the tugging and pulling of a knot being done that Jon briefly wondered what the point was. Until there was the smooth, quiet whisper of rope against rope and it all tightened exponentially, suddenly secure when Jon tugged at it.

Peter laughed at him again. “Trying to wiggle free already? No, no, don’t stop on my account, I insist.” Jon had stilled anyway, teeth digging into his gag. Irritated that Peter had noticed so immediately. “Really. If a bit struggling can get you loose, I’ve not done my part properly.”

That was- Jon really didn’t know what to make of a comment like that, and was distracted from trying to dissect his own reaction when Peter backstepped away from him without warning. It lit a flare of panic in his stomach – that he’d done something wrong, that all that _becoming_ nonsense was about to start again – but Peter hooked a few fingers in the loops he’d made and tugged Jon back into him.

“Need a bit more room for the next part,” Peter explained. The trailing length of rope was tossed over his shoulder, and then Peter was guiding him to turn around. “Curious yet? Dying to know what’s coming?”

Jon gave a muffled expression of his annoyance, because, _obviously_. It grew a bit strangled when Peter thumbed at his lip again. When he noticed the saliva that had trailed there, pooling out from his mouth. When Peter wiped his hand clean on his collarbone.

“Guess you’ll just have to wait and find out.”

The rope was pulled down, bisecting his chest, and Peter wound it around his body just below his pecs, and again, slipping underneath his already bound arms. Peter tugged it tight, until Jon gave a small gasp at the sensation of the rope shivering over his skin, just short of friction. He felt Peter knotting it around his front, tying it to the first strand in a way that even with his eyes closed seemed overly convoluted. Around and through, multiple times, Peter’s hands brushing against his skin each time. And then higher, a knot on his sternum, and higher, towards the hollow of his throat.

It went over his opposite shoulder next. Jon heaved a sigh as Peter had him turn round again. But his hands were steady and sure, and it was almost soothingly rhythmic, how he wrapped the rope about itself, thickening the strand stretching down along his spine to his arms. The soft brushes of the backs of Peter’s knuckles over his skin, or the warm press of a palm laid flat against him. Peter stepped too close, his shirt brushing against Jon’s arms as he took the rope around one of his arms, snared it somehow around the knot on his chest and yanked it tight. Drew its free length back around his arm and across his back, to the other side. Jon shuddered at the sharp pull, as both his arms were pinned just below the curve of his bicep.

The process repeated itself, down along his midarm, and further, wrapping around his waist, forming patterns he couldn’t see, crisscrossing over his skin. Knots in achingly straight lines pressing into him at even intervals. The bounds were tight enough to constrict his lungs, tight enough that taking in a deep breath had him flexing ineffectually against their hold. Peter would do something every now and then – loop some length of rope somewhere or another – that would pull the strands taut, adding tension to his lines.

There was almost no give when Jon tested at getting his arms free. Suspended at his midback, pinned to his sides. Tentative little flexes of his muscles at first, as though he was loath to actually disrupt Peter’s work. And when that provided no freedom, none of those intricately designed knots tugging free, Jon pulled at them in earnest. Surprised when he could strain and strain against their hold without consequence. Except for the bite of them into his skin, the slight sting as he shifted within them, their smooth surfaces rubbing raw, searing warmth where he tugged and chafed.

It was strange. There was so much less to concentrate on without his sight. His breath, coming shallow but even. The gag, soaked through and thick in his mouth. The murmurous susurration of rope as it slid through itself or Peter’s palms. Jon wondered what he looked like, trying to make sense out of what he could only feel. Knots down his midline, along his ribs – Peter was working on two now, in that way this all seemed to work, one side tied into place and then the other, then some binding of the two together, making a whole. Two against his hips, and Jon thought he should be embarrassed – standing here in only his pants, having his boss effectively hog tie him – but he just… didn’t.

It was almost calm. Very nearly soothing. He could tell where Peter was going by the tug of rope behind him, if not by the oddly subdued sounds of his movement. Peter stalked quietly, even in his horrible boots that made it seem like he still thought he was playing at being a sailor. Even his clothing barely made noise, as if the man was a vacuum. Or a blank space – not empty, but removed, an expert excisement of reality in the vague shape of a man. Was it strange to think of him like that fog, that cold, wet fog from the graveyard? How it seeped into everything of Jon but was still nothing at all.

His thoughts were jarred loose, scattered, by a sharp tug at the front of him. It shouldn’t have been enough to move him, but Jon hadn’t been expecting it. He stumbled a half step forward, but Peter wasn’t even that far from him. His hands and arms jerked, like he could catch himself, and Jon made a sound in his throat he couldn’t quite categorize himself. Surprise perhaps? A bit indignant, if he was honest, because he’d been- content, or at least comfortable. And now his pulse had leap, and as if he were made of wires and strings all tied taut together, Peter’s rough touch had radiated down his spine, blazing a hot trail to his stomach, and further.

“Still with me, there, Archivist?”

Peter had a finger hooked through the rope bisecting Jon’s sternum. His other hand landed somewhere on his flank, was petting up and down it, tugging at the ropes his fingers crawled across as it went. Each pull felt like it was connected to his own anatomy, somehow, sparks firing off of them and vibrating along his nerve endings. Jon belatedly realized he needed to respond, distracted as he was by each short, sharp tug from Peter’s fingers, and he hummed something he hoped passed for assent. Because obviously he was here. Peter had tied him here.

And before that, Beholding had tied him here. Elias had tied him here. Jon, too; he’d strung himself a noose, yards and yards of rope cast out of the frayed results of his own actions. He’d hated Elias, the first time he sat behind his desk, telling Jon how he’d _chosen_ this. And then he’d had to look – Jon always had to look – and watch how every decision he’d made for so, so long had drawn him in tight and taut and bound.

“Not so much, eh? That’s perfectly fine.” Peter yanked at his chest again, and Jon made a short sound of annoyance. “How about this? You’re doing well, Jon. Really, just fantastic. You’re suited for it.”

The words, too, felt like they had some direct tie to him, thousands of small, fragile threads thrumming in the wake of a resonant bell chime, a heat that was less painfully burning. Softer, brighter, and that really didn’t make any sense at all, and Jon found himself thinking that he might have made himself more vulnerable than he’d intended. The thought didn’t fit like it should, didn’t worry him like it should.

“Now,” Peter said. He ducked in close, and Jon felt his lips move across the skin of his neck, stubble catching. “We’re almost through. I will, however, need you on your knees.” 

Jon nodded, mostly because it seemed like what he should be doing at the moment. As a response. Peter supported him, sinking down, guided him to fold his legs beneath him, kneeling on the balls of his feet. Then his legs were being bound, too, tied in that position with his calf against his thigh, loops and knots on one leg, cinched tight with sharp, precise motions. Jon realized there was a lapse, an unfamiliar lull in the tide that was Peter Lukas’ attention, pulling and pulling and pulling at him. He tried to unbend his leg – his right – and bit into the cloth of the gag when he couldn’t, an unconscious noise buried in the back of his throat.

This was the part, Jon thought, where Peter moved to his other leg. Finished the symmetry that had so defined this process thus far. Instead, he heard Peter give a soft curse, and a hand gripped a few of the ropes on the outside of his leg, near to his knee. Peter spread his leg to the side, and pulled him forward by his chest, a force that dropped to his hip – his ass – once he’d half stumbled and half arched into Peter’s lap. He could feel Peter’s cock against him, hot and hard even through his clothes, Peter’s hand an anchor dragging him down as the man rolled his hips against him, fingers digging into his skin.

“Not the deal,” Peter said. Oddly calmly, Jon thought, for a man currently grinding against him. “I know, Archivist, I know.”

Peter kept the hand on his thigh – on the ropes there – in place, but the other slid around to his frontside. Palming at him through his briefs, rolling and pinching his flesh into responding. Jon let his forehead drop on Peter’s shoulder and found himself shoving his hips forward, into Peter’s movements, more hot, stinging friction that he couldn’t escape.

“All right,” Peter huffed, followed by a groan, grabbing the rope at the back of Jon’s neck like a scruff and tugging him back. “Maybe next time. You really don’t make things easy on yourself, do you?”

Jon felt a protest building in his throat that he clumsily swallowed down. Shifting his hips restlessly, twisting his torso, his arms, surrounded in stimulation everywhere but the one place he suddenly needed it, and Peter kept his touches short and perfunctory – and utterly away from Jon’s cock, hard and straining against his clothing – as he took the length of rope that still dangled from Jon’s right leg and bound up his other in it, the two of them pulled together near his ankles.

“There we are! All done. How do you feel? Properly handled?”

Jon heard - and felt, a displacement of the air - Peter rise to his feet. He shifted, seeing how much he could, and couldn’t, move. Went to press his thighs together but Peter’s boot nudged them back apart, and then the sole of it was shoving against Jon’s cock, grinding it against his pelvis. He couldn’t bite back any of the small, pathetic sounds the action inspired. His cheeks flared with heat when he even ground his hips up, rutting himself against the bottom of Peter’s shoe.

“Honestly, Archivist, it’s a wonder you’ve made it as far as you have,” Peter commented. It wasn’t said – or meant – nicely, and it sunk like rocks to the basin of Jon’s stomach, blazed sickly down between his hips. “Yeah? You going to bring yourself off like this? Right here, on the floor of my office?”

It wasn’t _his_ office. But Jon didn’t stop his hips, unable to stop the twitching jerk of them when Peter shoved just shy of too hard, ground the toe of his boot into the head of Jon’s cock. And then Peter pulled away, catching Jon by the hair when he tipped forward, trying to follow.

“No, no I don’t think so,” Peter said. Jon groaned, nosing blindly towards Peter, but he was held at arm’s length, Peter’s fingers twisting in his hair. “I already said, maybe next time. Something we could discuss when your mouth is a bit less occupied.”

Jon let out a sigh that, even to his ears, sounded suspiciously like a whimper. There wasn’t much more protest to give, as Peter arranged him. He thought they might have ended up back at the desk. Peter had certainly sat down – he heard the creak of the chair, and then he’d been ushered between Peter’s spread legs, knees bracketing Jon’s shoulders. Peter’s cock was still a hard, thick length in his slacks. Jon pressed his face to it, not really thinking until Peter yanked him away again.

“Unbelievable,” Peter breathed. “Do try to control yourself, Jon. Is this what Elias meant, saying you had your issues with moderation?”

Face flushed, Jon stilled himself. Pressed his cheek to the inside of Peter’s thigh and tried to calm himself. His pulse slowly easing, cock aching with every beat, and piece by piece, Jon felt himself settle. Back into that place which was quiet and still, tugging at his bonds when he felt too far adrift, snared utterly into his body. Human, stripped of vision and speech and action, unable to respond to the inhuman forces that warped and dragged at him.

It was hard, perhaps impossible, to tell how long he spent there. His joints hurt and then didn’t. He shifted his weight now and again. Peter’s hand periodically found his hair. Otherwise there was the sound of pens, or typing. A period where Jon was sure Peter was talking – probably on the phone – but Jon couldn’t be bothered to make sense of his words, didn’t try to follow the one-stranded thread of his conversation even as curiosity prickled dully along the insides of his veins.

Quiet, and still, and free of a weight that never seemed to leave him anymore. The feeling of being watched and studied. Picked apart, piece by piece, to be discarded or reshaped. It was a relief. He found himself missing it. Everything felt tangled inside him, hopelessly, utterly. He found himself thinking of Elias, sat in his chair, how smooth his deceptively fine clothing would feel against his skin.

Peter plucked the gag from his mouth, eventually. Unwound the blinder from his eyes so Jon could blink blearily up at him. Working his jaw, which felt sore, licking at his stretched lips and tonguing at the corners of his mouth. Peter made comments as he knelt down in front of Jon again, painstakingly unknotting his ties. They didn’t really register, but they sounded snide. Most things didn’t fully register until Jon was standing again, shaking blood back into tingling limbs.

His clothes were dropped into a crumpled heap on the side of the desk. Jon frowned at them.

“So,” Peter said. He was back sprawled in his chair, looking languid but for the sharp cut of his eyes, tracking Jon’s movements like a bored, satisfied predator. “How often does that happen?”

“Never again,” Jon snapped, jerking his slacks up his legs.

Peter, true to form, laughed at him. “ _Never again_. Shall I just leave you the keys to the office, then? Let you crawl beneath the desk at your convenience?”

“I can handle it- I’ve _been_ handling this on my own,” Jon said. “This was just- just a one-time... thing.”

“Jon,” Peter said. Sternly enough that Jon paused in his frantic efforts to redress, met his gaze. “I realize that the relationship between you, and Elias, can’t be replaced-”

“-that is really not what-”

“-But I would like you to think of me as a resource. No shame in needing a helping hand from a friend, after all. And I do sincerely hope we can be friends.”

“…Right,” Jon answered. He swallowed, because, despite everything, it _had_ helped. There was only a lingering jitteriness through his limbs, a nearly floating feeling in his skull that tended to follow in the wake of a migraine. “No, I- I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Peter smiled. An expression that didn’t reach his eyes, that was more like a baring of his teeth. That reminded Jon of hands in his hair, of ropes all around him, a boot digging cruelly into him. “Well. Offer’s on the table, Archivist. For next time.”

Jon nodded, and took a hasty leave, and tried to ignore the part of himself that was already looking forward to it.


End file.
